


Piece by Piece

by Daretodream66



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 14:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daretodream66/pseuds/Daretodream66
Summary: Steve and Bucky at Christmas.  Everyone is depressed until they're not.





	Piece by Piece

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes when I'm at work, I have to step away from my job. Sometimes, just sometimes, teaching high school students can become soul-sucking. This is what happens when I have to sit down for a few minutes and think about something else.

The memories come back slowly, in fragments. Bits here and there that don’t make any sense at the time, but when he gives it a week or two, they start to come together into a cohesive recollection.

He remembers a blond woman, small and frail in appearance, but strong and sturdy in actuality. After a few more days, he knows the woman is Sarah Rogers. He wonders why he remembers her first and not his own mother. That question is answered soon after when a memory of telling his ma he’s going to the Rogers house for dinner and the dark haired woman stopping him and telling him that he has to stop hanging around with Steve so much because the neighborhood is going to start talking.

He’s a child, maybe 10, and doesn’t know what she means by that. He had asked Ma Sarah and she’d frowned. At first he’d thought he’d done something wrong, but she’d sat at the kitchen table, pulled him into her lap and explained that Bucky’s ma was worried about the people thinking he and Steve were more than friends.

Bucky had told her that they were, they were like brothers. She’d smiled at that, hugged him close and told him that she was happy he felt that way about her Stevie. He’d pecked her on the cheek and gone to find his friend. His best friend.

The next memory is one of a holiday. He and Steve are in their apartment and he remembers clearly looking at Steve and thinking he’s beautiful. Later that day they go to Bucky’s parents for dinner and Winifred Barnes had been cold to Steve. As soon as dinner is over, he pulled Steve from the apartment and taken him home. Bundling him in thin blankets and huddling together on the sofa for warmth.

This is how the memories come to Bucky. They are all of Steve. That’s when he knows that whatever it is that he felt for Steve had changed dramatically over their years of knowing each other. And then it makes sense that Steve is able to bring him out of decades of torture with one set of words. “I’m with you til the end of the line.”

He hasn’t seen Steve in almost a year, not since that day when he pulled him from the Potomac and left him on the bank for his team to find. He sits in his little apartment in Romania and stares out at the snow wondering what Steve is doing. He doesn’t think of him as a mission anymore, not after the memories start coming back. He’s Steve. He’s Bucky’s Stevie.

He’s the man that Bucky loves more than his own life. He can never tell Steve.

 

Christmas is coming and as much as Steve thinks he should go to Mass, he doesn’t feel like he can. Mass is for people that still believe. That isn’t Steve anymore. Everything his ma had instilled in him as a child is gone. He only hopes that her faith carried her to heaven like she deserved.

Three days before Christmas, Steve is still struggling with what his ma would want and what he needs to do for himself, when Natasha knocks on his door. She smirks at him, looking into the apartment and not seeing a tree. Handing him a file, she turns and leaves, no words, no condemnation on his lack of decoration, just that smirk and she’s gone. Opening the file, he sees what he’s been hoping for, Bucky’s location.

The apartment building is run down and in need of some attention, but it’s unassuming which would definitely suit Bucky if he’s trying to hide. Steve understands why he left, why he needed to get his head on straight, if that’s what Bucky is doing, but it still hurts that he didn’t feel like Steve could help him.

Pausing at the door, he raises his hand, but hesitates before knocking. Is he ready for this? Is he ready for the rejection that he’s convinced is coming? Steve doesn’t want to upset Bucky, but he needs to see him. It stopped being about want months ago. He needs this. Two days before Christmas, he needs to feel like he’s part of something. He needs his best friend. He needs his Bucky. The love of his life. He can never tell him.

Knocking three solid times, he waits.

 

Bucky doesn’t have visitors. The only person that comes to his apartment is the landlady and it’s not time for that. He eases to the door, gun in hand, expecting the worst.   It’s not that he’s afraid, he’s just cautious. Cracking the door, he sees… “Steve.” It’s barely a whisper, but it’s all the blond needs.

The door opens all the way and Steve steps into Bucky’s space. Pulling the brunette against him, it only occurs to him after he’s done it, that it may not be welcome. “Buck.”

Bucky clings to him, holding onto memories and feelings. He’s been searching for home and hasn’t found it until now. Steve doesn’t mean to sob into Bucky’s shoulder, but after so long, after losing him, after finding him, and losing him again, Steve doesn’t have the resolve to hold it in anymore. “I’m here. I’m right here, Stevie.”

What Bucky isn’t expecting are the gut wrenching sobs that now escape the strongest man Bucky’s ever known. Even being beaten up all those decades ago, he never cried like this. He can hardly be heard over his own sobs. “Don’t leave, don’t leave again.” Steve doesn’t mean to beg, it’s not who he is, but he doesn’t have the will-power to stop himself.

There isn’t really any place to sit in the small, mostly unfurnished apartment, so Bucky lowers them to the bed. He doesn’t mean anything by it and doesn’t think anything untoward would even cross Steve’s mind, since he doesn’t see Bucky that way. So, when 240lbs of nothing but muscle super-soldier climbs into his lap, he’s surprised, ecstatic, but surprised.

Bucky looks up and Steve looks a little manic. “Let me…just once…please…I won’t ask again.” Before Bucky can respond, Steve’s lips are on his. It feels like heaven opened up and rained an undeserved gift onto Bucky. He doesn’t deserve it, but he’s going to take it and not let go.

Steve backs away, realization of what he’s done hits full force. Jesus, he’s just taken advantage of his best friend, a man that doesn’t even really know him anymore. Backing away, making to get off of Bucky’s lap and apologize for this misstep.   Not raising his eyes and knowing that he’s every shade of red, he feels everything inside of him crumble. This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have come here and he most especially shouldn’t have done this.

Bucky has never been so turned on in his life, that he can remember, but it feels true. Pulling Steve back into position, he rolls them, hovering over Steve. The blond looks up, scared that Bucky feels threatened, but what he sees is tenderness. “It’s not going to be just once.”

Its Steve’s turn to look shocked at his long, lost best friend. “I’m sorry I jumped you like that. I didn’t meant to force something on you.”

Bucky reaches down and brushes Steve’s hair away from his forehead. “You didn’t force anything. Once I started remembering, it seemed like something we should have been doing all along.” Then, in a move that Steve hasn’t seen since 1945, Bucky smirks down at him and wiggles his eyebrows. It was usually aimed at some innocent girl that didn’t know what she was getting into. “Tell me what’s on the table, so I know how far I can go.”

Steve laughs and it’s nothing but pure joy. “Everything is on the table. Nothing is off limits with you. Never has been.”

Bucky lays himself fully on top of Steve. “Oh doll, you might want to rethink that.” Steve sees James Buchannan Barnes shine through. The longer hair, scruff where he would have been clean shaven, but that spark, those eyes, it’s all Bucky.

Steve looks up, meeting blue/grey eyes like a challenge. “Never.”


End file.
